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“They say everything is bigger in Texas,” Legend said. “Unfortunately, that extends to the state’s correctional system as well. Texas puts too many people behind bars, and taxpayers, families and communities are paying a heavy price for those policies.”

Legend was welcomed by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, which is backing 45 bills that would reduce the incarceration of minors, encourage jail diversion and treatment programs, and improve prison standards.

Thursday they gained the support of Grammy Award winning singer John Legend. “It doesn’t have to include prison every time,” he said at a press conference in the Lt. Governor’s reception room. Legend kicked off his “Free America” campaign at the Texas Capitol. His goal is to end what he calls “mass incarceration.”

Several state legislators joined the 9-time Grammy winner as he kicked off his national campaign to end mass incarceration.
Earlier in the day Legend visited the Travis County Correctional Complex to talk and perform for inmates.

He wants to update penalties for crimes like an invalid driver’s license and marijuana and raise the age for juveniles facing court from seventeen to eighteen, and he wants to de-criminalize truancy.

Award-winning artist John Legend is traveling across the country to help solve America’s prison problem. Legend kicked off his multi-year campaign called “FREE AMERICA” at the state Capitol on Tuesday afternoon. The campaign aims to end mass incarceration by changing the penalties for some crimes.
Legend is working with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, state legislators and coalition partners to build a culture that is not “tough on crime” but rather, “smart on crime.”

R&B artist John Legend brought some star power to the Texas Capitol on Thursday to promote his Free America campaign to reduce the country’s incarceration rate.

As part of Free America, Legend said he came to Texas to learn about the state’s efforts to make safer communities and to reform the corrections systems. But he also wanted to encourage policymakers to “be even bolder and go even further.”

He also was here to talk to Texas lawmakers in an effort to bring attention to one of the biggest crises in our country – the mass incarceration of people and especially people of color. It was in February while accepting an Oscar for Best Original Song for “Glory,” from the movie, “Selma,” that Legend publicly let his sentiments be known by calling America the most incarcerated nation in the world and comparing its imprisonment of black men to slavery. Up to then, Legend’s advocacy primarily was aimed at improving public education.

“We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country,” Legend said in an interview, according to the AP. “It’s destroying families, it’s destroying communities and we’re the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration.”

Legend will also visit a California state prison and co-host a Politico criminal justice event later this month.

Texas has for years had more prisoners than any other state, though the headcount has dropped slightly in the last six years amid reform efforts. At the end of last year, 150,212 offenders lived in Texas’ 109 prisons, compared with 48,000 in 1990, before the start of a prison-building spree. Ahead of his trip, Legend talked with The Texas Tribune about why Texas is so crucial to the criminal justice reform movement.

The AP said a central portion of FREE AMERICA’s strategy revolves around reducing felonies for nonviolent crimes to misdemeanors. This includes criminal charges for shoplifting, forgery, fraud, petty theft and minor drug possession, it added. “Once you have that tag of a felony on your name, it’s hard for you to do anything,” Legend said Monday.

Texas has for years had more prisoners than any other state, though the headcount has dropped slightly in the last six years amid reform efforts. At the end of last year, 150,212 offenders lived in Texas’ 109 prisons, compared with 48,000 in 1990, before the start of a prison-building spree. Ahead of his trip, Legend talked with The Texas Tribune about why Texas is so crucial to the criminal justice reform movement.